I think the claim is that demanding what is rightfully yours is greedy and selfish. I don't know whether I agree in this case (probably not), but there have been cases in my life where I do agree.
It's that "rightfully yours" bit that really bothers me. Where does that come from and why is it so obviously rightfully yours? It takes some gumption to assume you're in the right. This land is rightfully mine because I bought it from someone else who genocided a people, but okay great, it's rightfully mine, I feel super great about it.
Legal documents are part of a negotiation, not a casual conversation. If one side says they owe you nothing, you come in saying they owe you everything. You meet in the middle.
> After hearing the announcement, Guillory contacted Vogt to inquire about his share of the proceeds from the sale of Cruise to GM. Vogt responded that he was due nothing, but first offered $100,000, then $1 million, and then $1.5 million and acknowledgment that Guillory was a co-founder — but only if Guillory would immediately surrender his ownership rights.
> The second Director to contact Guillory, Altman, also said he was authorized to negotiate on Cruise’s behalf and offered Guillory triple the amount of Vogt’s previous offer, but only if Guillory would agree to sign a formal settlement agreement that same day.
3 x $1.5 million = $4.5 million. Personally, I would have taken the money, but I think it must be incredibly hard to make such a decision under time pressure and without counsel. Still, you can retire on that money and basically be happy, and I would have chosen that over this shitstorm if I'd had the presence of mind.
It's pretty obvious to me that they pushed him. First he was pushed out from the company and then they tried to push him out of the bigger deal with $100,000.
All Internet outcry in the last few days about this is also pretty indicative. They used their influence to portray Guillory as a bad character all in "we are angels" and he's a freeloader way. Which of course considering Guillory previous work in the field is suspicious. He certainly contributed at the beginning and probably that contribution was very, very important for the company. Otherwise they wouldn't go all the way to $4.5 million.
The interesting point you make about "presence of mind". Exactly. No one in this case has the presence of mind. It reeks of anger and revenge. I feel the same way so I am rooting for the small guy here.
Why would I take the money? Because I've seen someone sue and win a lawsuit and I just wouldn't want to go through the stress of it. Even if I thought I was right and could win. Everyone has their price, maybe Jeremy would have settled for $20M.
Which is why I am inclined to believe Jeremy really believes he is in the right in this case. If I thought I was entitled to hundreds of millions and someone offered me $100k, I would be so offended I would see out the suit to the end even if it got me nothing. The very idea that they went 10x on that offer, than 50% up and than 3x would just embolden me to realize they are really trying to screw me...
The irony is that the inhabitants of the "San Francisco Castro neighborhood" also form an ethnic group by virtue of living in the same place. Notably, it's a gay neighborhood. Takeaway? Gangs rob stores in gay villages. Oh, and cops are racists. Moral? Let people think for themselves, you can't get away from prejudice.
> An ethnic group or ethnicity is a category of people who identify with each other based on common language, ancestral, social, cultural, or national experiences.
Sam owns YC, YC owns HN, what does it matter? The whole purpose of HN is to make Sam (and the other partners, and investors, and YC startups) money. Mindshare is incredibly valuable. It's advertising that doesn't totally suck.
Hacker News is a bit of a misnomer. It doesn't, nor has it ever, served hackers. This is a site for the startup kids, and you either love it or hate it, but you gotta accept it for what it is.
Actually the better part of HN's audience isn't involved in startups and a sizeable portion (dismayingly sizeable in my view) is cynical about them.
"Startup kids" is too dismissive. Some of the very best comments about startups come from grizzled veterans. Will ChuckMcM or Animats mind if I call them grizzled? Let's just pause to appreciate what incredible value they and others add to this community from the wealth of their experience.
Than again, depending on your definition of "kid" there are "kids" on HN whose experience with startups is already impressive. Experience should perhaps be measured in iterations, not years.
HN has many subgroups, including plenty of hackers. Plenty of purely technical stories make the front page. And the startup and hacker groups overlap.
We get complaints about the balance whichever way HN trends.
Lots of hackers are well known for their vast knowledge of the tech scene including vague startups that nobody has heard of. I know I make 'hackers' sound like hipsters but labels are usually poorly representations of a generic set of traits, people just turn todays newer labels and magnify the worst of the worst. Coincidentally I never liked labels, but hacker and geek are things that gave me a piece of mind after scraping out of high school (mostly geek).
Wrong. When I first lurked here a high-percentage of posts here were relating to startup concerns. The number have dropped dramatically over time. My non-hacker son-in-law who only knows finance was a hacker news reader a few years ago, hoping to learn tips about starting something up. He gave up due to the dwindling number of such posts.
The point is that a lot of us lose sight of the bias inherent here. Sometimes I get lost in how great HN is, especially compared to similar online communities.
Picking the locks is breaking and entering, going through an open window is illegal trespass, assuming you don't have to move any parts of the window. At least where I live. It depends on whether or not you have to use even the slightest amount of force to gain access. It also depends on your intent to commit a crime inside. If I'm looking for you because I've found your toddler wandering around outside and I open an unlocked door to call out your name, it isn't a crime. I'm not sure what happens if I pick a locked door in that situation, getting pretty contrived now. But let's say I heard your kid crying inside that you'd abandoned, it wouldn't be a crime to pick the lock and rescue him/her.
> Although rarely listed as an element, the common law required that "entry occur as a consequence of the breaking".[7] For example, if a wrongdoer partially opens a window with a pry bar—but then notices an open door, which he uses to enter the dwelling, there is no burglary under common law.
There are more results if you search for "breaking and entering", it was all pretty consistent.
Yes, but that's using force to open the door, which was in my original claim about no force on an open window.
Reading that WP article again, turns out I was just considering the common law part. It later says:
> The common law definition has been expanded in most jurisdictions, such that the building need not be a dwelling or even a building in the conventional sense, physical breaking is not necessary, the entry does not need to occur at night, and the intent may be to commit any felony or theft.
So I'll give it to you for "physical breaking is not necessary", even though I don't actually know about the jurisdiction in question. (I didn't rtfa.)
Oh, I was literally just arguing the other side about going through an open window because I didn't know for sure if it was burglary. (Common law says no, but that's probably updated, but maybe not in some places, but I didn't check them all.)
I don't see how you could access a computer without using "force", any input from a human constitutes force in my opinion. So no disagreement as far as the actual crime is concerned, I'm just nitpicking for fun...
Bipolar depression rapidly gives way to mania if you try to treat it like unipolar depression with standard antidepressants. The chances of this happening are greatly increased if you've never been diagnosed as bipolar. It happened to someone I know, and it was pretty ugly. The jackass behavior is an unfortunate part of the medical condition. It's common for the shame felt after coming down from a manic episode to throw you right back into depression. You can search for "ssri mania" if you want to learn more, it's a well-known phenomenon.
